Democrat Haley Stevens Endorses GOP Candidate for US Senate, Mike Rogers

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

I’ve studied politics for most of fifty years, and actively participated as a Democrat for most of the last 25. I worked in Kentucky politics right after retiring from the Army ran for the Virginia state legislature twice since 2019. I’ve never seen anything like the Haley Stevens endorsement of Mike Rogers for US Senate in Michigan.

Losing primary candidates have a few options with respect to how they play the general election. Most throw their support to the winner and ask their supporters to do the same because this is the best way to keep their position in the Party. This matters, because the Party (both the administrative establishment and its voters) has a lot of say over who gets future nominations and support.

After contentious primaries, a candidate may and often does profess support for the winner but doesn’t do a lot of work to get their supporters to show up and help the general election candidate win. They don’t appear at campaign events or help them raise money (for example by sharing donor lists or making calls on the winner’s behalf).

After Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic primary for US Senate in Michigan, it appeared that Stevens would follow the second path. She conceded and congratulated El Sayed, but didn’t seem to take an active role in helping him win. This sort of makes sense after a fairly bitter primary during which El Sayed criticized Stevens strongly for her position on aid to Israel and her willingness to accept corporate political action committee (PAC) money.

Now she has decided to endorse Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee, two days before Election Day.

In Virginia, this amounts to formal resignation from Democratic Party committees, and I can’t imagine that significant numbers of Michigan Democrats would welcome someone who endorsed a Republican who consistently votes against protecting reproductive health care rights for women and supports fetal personhood.

In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Stevens cited “growing anger” from the El Sayed campaign as her reason for her decision, but this makes little sense given that she’d said the day before that she looked forward to appearing with him at a church service and later campaign event on November 1, the day she broke from the party. Instead, she attended a service at a black church in Detroit instead.

It looks to me like her decision has much to do with her position on Israel and influence from her fiancé, Jason Turkish.

Jason Turkish, the fiancé of former Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Haley Stevens, accused the party’s Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of escalating rhetoric that makes Jewish people unsafe, deepening an intraparty feud days before the midterms.

The immediate fight centers partly on a digital advertisement produced by Rebellion PAC, an outside group supporting El-Sayed that describes itself as a movement that rejects “the corporate-driven status quo” and stands “against the establishment.”

The advertisement shows a couple grocery shopping and talking about putting back a carton of eggs because “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians,” before criticizing U.S. military assistance to Israel in its war in Gaza. Stevens, a U.S. Representative who lost to El-Sayed in the August primary, characterized the advertisement as antisemitic and called on him to condemn it.

I am not a fan of this ad because I think it muddles the message by failing to clearly connect the high cost of groceries to taxpayer funds sent to Israel. But it points out a key issue: that the US supports genocide in Gaza with taxpayer funds, and I’m not surprised that the Zionist crowd tries to frame this as anti-semitism rather than anti-genocide.

Turkish has pushed the “El Sayed is a terrorist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood” narrative and endorsed Rogers on October 28. Further, Stevens is apparently converting to Judaism as their wedding approaches. And apparently, some of Stevens’ close circle have become concerned about her relationship with Turkish. It’s important to be careful about characterizing others’ relationships, but former Michigan governor Jim Blanchard, in an interview with Gongwer News Service (paywall), described Turkish pressuring Stevens at dinner to support Rogers, saying: “He was working her over.”

Much of El Sayed’s criticism of Stevens focused on her acceptance of millions of dollars in campaign funding from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is Israel’s key lobbying organization in the US. El Sayed has pointed out many times that he believe the US should be spending taxpayer dollars on feeding American children, not bombing Palestinian children. He did not condemn the Rebellion PAC ad.

All of this makes me wonder if AIPAC leaders believe El Sayed is poised to win and wanted a hail mary endorsement from Stevens to see if they could get Rogers over the finish line in a very close election.

It also makes me wonder if AIPAC and the GOP promised her something in return, and what that might be.

Will the Gerrymanders Work?

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Texas and Florida both redrew Congressional districts this year in an effort to protect the GOP majority in Congress. To do this, they used precinct voter data to create more districts with Republican majorities (at least according to the most recent election results).

It’s worth taking a look at whether this might backfire for a couple of reasons.

Success rests on the assumption that voting patterns won’t change much. That is, precincts that voted 52% for Trump in 2024 will vote close to that percentage for Congress in 2026. This is very unlikely. Changes in the economy caused by immigration enforcement, rising fuel prices caused by the Iran war, and a general perception that things have not improved since Trump won a second term in 2024 well almost certainly cause many people to change their votes, and few of those will go from blue to red. The best example of this in Texas is the apparent return to the Democratic Party by Hispanics.

This matters because to draw a new map with fewer Democratic Party seats means moving blue precincts into red districts and red districts to blue. This means making what used to be easy wins a little closer by moving those votes to make new majority districts.

But if voting patterns change a lot, some of the new districts are now vulnerable, since it went from a 60% district to a 55% district. In a way, Virginia’s First District is an example. When the Commonwealth drew new districts after the 2020 Census, the new CD 01 lost red precincts in Hanover and Stafford Counties while picking up bluer precincts in Henrico and Chesterfield. Wittman historically won the seat with a 56% plus vote total, but these changes moved the District about 2% to the left. With a big enough blue wave, this could mean a Democrat can win and Shannon Taylor might pull it off.

For a quick look at whether the Texas and Florida redistricting could backfire, check out this New Republic article on Nine Gerrymandered Districts to watch on Tuesday.

When Republicans set out to redistrict in the middle of the decade, they thought they were all but ensuring more seats in the House. But, one week before the midterm elections, many of Republicans’ tailor-made districts are looking vulnerable. Here are nine districts to watch on election night to gauge the success of gerrymandering in Florida and Texas:

FL-9
In this Central Florida district, Democratic Representative Darren Sotois running against Navy reservist Dan Green. Polling shows an even race, and the Cook Political Report rates the race as “likely D.”

FL-14
Trump won this Tampa Bay-area district by 11 points in 2024, but the race is now rated as a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report. Democratic Representative Kathy Castor, who is leading in polls, is hoping to defend her seat from Republican Mike Beltran.

FL-25
Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz is facing Republican Scott Singer in this South Florida district. Polls give mixed messages, but the Cook Political Report moved the race from “toss-up” to “lean D” in mid-October.

FL-22
Democrat Pia Dandiya is up against Republican Casey Askar. Limited polling shows a tight race, with a small advantage for Dandiya. The race is considered a “toss-up.”

TX-32
A lack of polling makes this race hard to judge, but a Harvard-ElectIt forecast gives Democrat Dan Barrios only a 20 percent chance of beating Republican Jace Yarbrough.

TX-9
The Cook Political Report considers this race “likely R” after a leftward shift from “solid R” in late September. Polls show Republican Alex Mealer ahead of Democrat Leticia Gutierrez.

TX-35
Another toss-up race, and this one could be anyone’s game. Polls show Democrat Johnny Garcia neck-and-neck with his GOP opponent, Carlos De La Cruz.

TX-28
Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar has held this seat for 11 terms, and recent polls suggest he’ll win another against Republican Tano Tijerina. Last week, the Cook Political Report shifted the race from “lean D” to “likely D.”

TX-34
Democratic Representative Vicente Gonzales is facing former federal prosecutor Eric Flores in this race, which recently moved left from “toss-up” to “lean D.” Polls suggest Gonzalez is in the lead.

Quick caveat on polls: Republicans have tended to over perform polls in recent years because respondents hide the fact that they plan to vote red or because pollsters failed to properly parse the voting population (that is, they included too few Republicans in their samples).

I’ve read that this year pollsters have tried to account for this. We’ll see.

Game Recognizes Game

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

According to ProPublica (a very important investigative journalism magazine that everyone should read), Trump’s Department of Justice intervened to rescue Susan Collins from an FBI investigation into what amounts to bribery.

“But the company did have such a proposal: Navatek was hungry for more government contracts in Maine. If they cut a big check, the CEO told Reed, Navatek wanted Collins to guarantee tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding.

To skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company. The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where the money came from. Reed confirmed that she would, the executive said — and that Navatek would get its government contracts.

After the Corner Bakery meeting, Navatek’s CEO, Martin Kao, sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company. Two months later, he told Navatek executives that Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica.

Three years later, Kao holed up in a conference room to recount the Corner Bakery meeting to a group of four FBI agents and federal prosecutors. The FBI had seen through his shell company ruse, and in 2022 a grand jury indicted him for making illegal campaign contributions. No one working for Collins was charged.“

In fact, Trump’s DOJ no longer investigates corruption in any meaningful way, and is more likely to do what it did here when faced with real corruption: look the other way and drop investigations when it serves his purposes.

Instead, Trump’s DOJ files specious charges against political opponents, former aides who don’t spread his lies, or just people he doesn’t like.

The Speech That Broke the Frame

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

How the 2026 State of the Force Became a Stress Test for American Civil–Military Norms

By Scott Konopasek

One would think that a Secretary of Defense addressing a room full of senior officers would be boring, unheralded, and ignored by the media. That used to be the case. But like so much else in American governance, even this has become political theater.

Hegseth’s “State of the Force” is not an established Pentagon ritual. It’s not a long‑running institutional tradition. It is a new political invention — created and branded by Hegseth and the Trump administration, first informally in 2025 and then formalized in 2026.

Last week, Hegseth delivered a speech that sounded less like a briefing for generals and admirals and more like a campaign rally spliced with a revival meeting. He fired off slurs at transgender troops, mocked “woke generals,” invoked scripture as operational guidance, and announced a 20 percent purge of senior officers as if he were reading off a grocery list. He unveiled a new Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him — bypassing the chaplain corps — and declared that the “real battle is spiritual.”

The Atlantic described the room as “frozen.” General officers sat stiffly, hands folded, faces blank. They knew better than to cheer. A small number of junior officers clapped at a few applause lines before they, too, went quiet. They could feel the line between civilian control and partisan political theater bending. And they also knew something else: the speech wasn’t aimed at them. It was aimed at an audience outside the building — a political audience.

A Purge Not Called a Purge

Hegseth insisted that firing 10 percent of generals and eliminating another 10 percent of billets was “accountability,” not a purge. But the officers listening understood the message: loyalty is now a qualification, neutrality is risky, and dissent is terminal.

Mid‑career officers — the people who actually make the Department of Defense function — reacted with fear and confusion in internal morale surveys. They worry about promotion pathways, ideological vetting, and the sudden disappearance of mentors and institutional memory within their service. Senior leaders have warned the White House that readiness is already suffering.

The military is built on consistency and continuity. You cannot remove one‑fifth of senior leadership and rewrite long‑standing norms without shaking the ranks and degrading readiness.

The Culture War in Uniform

The speech’s most quoted line — “No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors.” — ricocheted across social media within minutes. Some veteran influencers celebrated it as a return to “warrior ethos.” But veterans who have actually led troops — the ones who understand cohesion and morale — saw something else.

Hegseth wasn’t describing standards. He was describing identity — who belongs and who doesn’t — and testosterone was one of the markers he used.

Democratic veterans in Congress responded immediately. Pat Ryan called the speech “pathetic” and “beneath the dignity of the office.” Chris Deluzio warned that the purge had “destabilized the military” and distracted from real war‑fighting needs. Their criticism wasn’t ideological. It was professional.

Republican veterans, by contrast, stayed quiet. Conservative veteran organizations didn’t weigh in. Their silence wasn’t accidental. It reflected the political pressures surrounding the administration.

Progressive veteran groups treated the speech as a direct threat to military professionalism. They focused less on the slurs and more on the structural message: that senior leadership could be purged for ideological reasons, and that religious identity might become a criterion for advancement.

The veteran community is not monolithic, and the speech exposed the fault lines with clarity. Culture warriors cheered the rhetoric. Veterans who value the Constitution and the rule of law over political loyalty saw it as an assault on the military’s independence.

The Religious Turn

The most overlooked part of the speech may be the most consequential: the creation of the Office of Religious Affairs.

Hegseth framed it as a way to “restore spiritual readiness.” Religious‑liberty advocates heard something else: a breach of the First Amendment. Military.com reported that the office immediately sparked a “legal church–state fight.” Constitutional scholars warned that the Pentagon cannot endorse a particular religious worldview, especially in an institution where obedience is not optional.

Christian and non‑Christian religious groups raised concerns about sectarian favoritism. Many church leaders warned against weaponizing faith. Even conservative Christian circles had raised concerns about religious freedom well before Hegseth’s announcement.

The LDS Church’s Constitutional Counterpoint

Recently, Dallin H. Oaks, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints — and a former state supreme court justice — spoke at the National Cathedral about religious freedom as a constitutional value. He emphasized constitutional balance, pluralism, and restraint — a message that stands in sharp contrast to the speech’s fusion of scripture, military aggression, and political identity.

Oaks urged Americans to build coalitions across disagreements and resist absolutism. He emphasized fairness for all, constitutional boundaries, and the need for peacemaking in a polarized nation. Retired federal judge Thomas Griffith praised Oaks’ message as a roadmap for navigating political and religious differences without coercion or contempt.

The LDS Church’s stance was clear: religious liberty protects everyone, government must avoid sectarian messaging, and faith should not be weaponized.

The Pope’s Moral Counterpoint

Where LDS leaders emphasized constitutional balance, Pope Leo XIV emphasized moral authority — but both pointed toward the same danger: the manipulation of religion to justify military action.

Just days after Hegseth prayed for “overwhelming violence” and “no mercy,” Pope Leo declared during Palm Sunday Mass that “God ignores the prayers of leaders who wage war and have hands full of blood.” He warned that Jesus “cannot be used to justify war.” Two weeks later, he condemned “those who manipulate religion for political or military ends.” And in May, his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas rejected autonomous warfare — the centerpiece of Hegseth’s AUTOWARCOM — as morally unacceptable.

This wasn’t theological commentary. It was a direct moral counter‑argument to the worldview Hegseth presented.

Historical Parallels — and Why They Don’t Fit

It’s tempting to reach for historical analogies to make sense of a moment like this. But the closest parallels don’t explain Hegseth’s speech — they highlight how many guardrails had to bend for it to happen.

Truman fired MacArthur to protect civil–military norms; Hegseth strained them. The Revolt of the Admirals was about policy, not ideology; today’s officers aren’t revolting, they’re afraid. Rumsfeld pushed radical transformation, but he didn’t lace it with slurs or scripture. Cold War civil religion was intentionally broad and nonsectarian. Chaplaincy battles were about enforcing neutrality, not reversing it. Foreign examples — Turkey, Hungary, Russia — show what happens when militaries become ideological instruments.

The real parallel is the absence of a parallel. The United States has never seen a civilian Secretary of Defense announce a purge of generals, use slurs against service members, invoke scripture as operational guidance, create a religious office reporting directly to him, frame war as a spiritual battle, and unveil a new autonomous‑warfare command — all in the same speech.

The analogies don’t normalize the speech. They show how far outside the norms it sits.

The Real Issue

The temptation is to treat the State of the Force speech as another entry in America’s endless culture war. But that misses the point.

The military is not a culture‑war battleground. It is a constitutional institution. Its legitimacy depends on nonpartisanship, professionalism, and continuity. When political actors treat it as a vehicle for ideological purification, they weaken the very thing they claim to strengthen.

Hegseth derides DEI initiatives while championing meritocracy as if the two are in opposition. Purges don’t build readiness. Slurs don’t build cohesion. Spiritual mandates don’t build trust. And speeches that sound like rallies don’t build institutions. Purges born of ideological purity tests, loyalty, and testosterone levels mock the notion of merit.

Theatrics have never been a force multiplier.

The Foggy Bottom Line

The 2026 State of the Force speech didn’t just reveal political polarization. It revealed institutional fragility. It showed how quickly civil–military norms can be bent, how easily rhetoric can become policy, and how deeply veterans themselves are divided about what the military should be.

But it also showed something else: the general officers in that room still know where the line is. They sat quietly. They didn’t cheer. They didn’t turn the speech into a spectacle.

Their integrity and professionalism held the line, even as the line was being probed and tested.

That, at least for now, should give us confidence in our military leadership.

Midterm Strategy: Ditch the Corporate Consultants for a GOP Performance Review

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

We’re 30 days out. Democrats look like they’re looking at a blue wave that could shift control of Congress from Republican to Democrat, maybe even the Senate. I want to talk about strategy a little bit because I’m seeing a lot of ads on TV that boil down to, “we gotta stop insider stock trading.” And you’re seeing that from both sides…even the guys that are doing it are bragging about voting for legislation that would stop it.

But Democrats are giving us the same old ads about how mom and dad taught me to work hard and I’ll work hard for you. I was a good prosecutor or state legislator or governor or businessman.

This is the same old corporate consultant bullshit that Democrats have been using to lose since 2016, and it’s time to change it up a little bit. Trump’s been president twice. The GOP has controlled all three branches of government for two years. And they still blame Biden for high gasoline prices.

It’s not Biden’s fault. They’ve had a chance to fix it. They haven’t fixed it.

So it’s time to do two things as a strategy for the midterms for Democrats in these last thirty days.

First, make this election a performance review. The GOP asked for control of Congress and the Senate and the presidency two years ago, and Americans gave it to them. They promised to make life more affordable and keep us out of war.

They did neither, and this begs the old Reagan question: Is your life better now than it was when we gave it to them?

The American people gave them control. We gave them power. What’d they use it for? Tax cuts for billionaires. They didn’t use it to bring your grocery prices down. They didn’t use it to bring your gasoline prices down. They didn’t use it to bring your housing prices down. And in fact, they got us into a war they promised not to get us into that raised all those prices.

Make Republicans talk about their performance just like you would at a job. If you’re a manager at a job, someone’s not performing, you talk to them and you fire them if they don’t straighten up and fly right.

The second thing we need to do is point out that the hundreds of millions of dollars corporations and billionaires and special interests are spending to try to win these seats demonstrates that they like the status quo. They want the status quo.

Seven dollar diesel is good for them because they’re selling diesel. It’s not good for you because you have to buy it to fill your truck up.

The same old corporate consultant stuff doesn’t work. These TV ads don’t change anybody’s minds. They just don’t. They may be good for pointing out to people who don’t pay much attention that there is an election, but they’re not changing anyone’s minds. No one is voting for Shannon Taylor because she said “Mom and dad taught me that hard work would bring success, but that doesn’t happen if we don’t stop the corruption” in a TV ad.

She’s right about that, but it’s not changing anyone’s mind. Instead, Shannon Taylor and other democrats need to be online saying it again and again: they promised to fix it and they just broke it even more.

Hammer home the fact that we gave the Republicans control of all three branches of government two years ago, and they’ve done nothing but create chaos and make things more expensive for everyone. It’s time to hold their feet to the fire because they didn’t do the job we hired them to do.

Point out that the corporations like the status quo just fine because they have power, they have no regulation, they have their tax cuts, and if they keep the same people in power, they’ll just get less regulation and more tax cuts.

And your housing will go up, your fuel costs will go up, your grocery bill will go up. Your interest rates on your credit card will go up because that’s all good for them. It’s all good for the corporations that are dropping millions in these elections blaming immigrants and trans people for the problems they caused.

You can’t blame Joe Biden for $7 diesel. The trans person is not causing $7 diesel fuel. Women who want reproductive health care are not causing $7 diesel fuel.

Republicans have had two years to fix it and they’ve only made it worse.  It’s time to hold their feet to the fire.

Progressives Show Strength in Democratic Primaries

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

It looks like Progressive candidates, all three with Mayor Mamdani’s endorsement, swept Democratic Party primaries in New York on Tuesday against candidates with Party support. (Paywall).

“Some of the night’s most potent victories for Mamdani’s branch of the party saw DSA-backed political newcomers Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier defeating establishment-endorsed candidates, signaling a potent fusion of Mamdani’s grassroots popularity with the DSA’s organizing machine. Avila Chevalier attended a pro-Palestinian rally in 2023 in New York City the day after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel that was criticized for including speakers who appeared to justify the violence.”

“Elsewhere, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, also backed by Mamdani, soundly beat incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in a heated election that also centered on U.S. policy toward Israel and the war in Gaza. Lander supports blocking military aid to Israel.”

This is an extraordinary result, and it’s not confined to New York:

“Progressives have romped through Democrats’ spring primaries, notching a series of wins across both safe and competitive districts and upending House and Senate Democrats’ battleplans. Left flank candidates Randy Villegas and Matt Dunlap trounced the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s preferred picks in a pair of battlegrounds in California and Maine.”

Two of the winners are aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, and Brad Lander defeated an incumbent Congressman, Dan Goldman, who held the seat since 2022 and was on the impeachment prosecution team. Lander defeated him by 2-1 with support for Israel the main issue.

Continue reading →

Did Jeff Bezos Earn His Fortune?

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by Marian Tupy arguing that “Jeff Bezos Earned his Fortune.” Tupy founded Human Progress, sort of a web magazine based on the idea that escape from social stagnation – human progress – requires a “culture of optimism and progress.” In this framing, we owe our rise from subsistence living with no running water and medicine or other technological advances to the rise of this culture in the West. Human Progress is a Cato Institute program. CATO exists to move “public policy in the direction of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” This is a free-market libertarian think tank that works against policy that regulates Capitalism in any way.

With this background in mind, it’s no surprise that Mr. Tupy believes that Bezos does, in fact, deserve to control an almost unimaginable amount of wealth (something on the order of $280B). 

I don’t disagree that Jeff Bezos should be a very wealthy man because of the businesses he started. But did the creation of online retail stores and internet cloud storage centers earn Bezos the obscene level of wealth he now controls? My back-of-the envelope math suggests that if he started spending a million dollars every day, he would need more than 750 years to spend all his money, assuming he never added another nickel to his bank account.

This level of wealth in the hands of one person is immoral and ridiculous. How does Tupy justify it?

He nods briefly to Amazon Web Services but focuses most of his argument on whether Amazon’s online retail platform saves people time, and how much. 

“Consider the arithmetic. Suppose an hour of labor is worth about $64, roughly the average gross domestic product per hour worked in the countries in which Amazon operates. If Mr. Bezos’ fortune corresponded to the total value that Amazon created, his $275 billion would represent about 4.3 billion hours of saved time. Divided among Amazon’s more than 300 million active customers, the saving comes to about 14 hours per customer over Amazon’s life. That’s nothing. Many customers save that in a month…

At $64 an hour, that means Amazon has saved its customers about 214 billion hours. Across 300 million customers over roughly 32 years (Amazon was founded in 1994), the saving equals about 22 hours per person a year. That is 25 to 26 minutes a week, or a little less than four minutes a day.“

I won’t challenge this math except to point out that if an hour of labor is worth about $64, and the pay range for most hourly Amazon workers is between $18 and $20, Bezos is paying this part of his work force less than a third of what their productivity is worth. Since Amazon’s gross profit in 2025 was around $360B, they could have paid each of their hourly workers another $20/hour and still raked in around $300B in profit. So while Amazon might be saving people a few minutes a day because they can order diapers online, they also exploit people who work for them. In other words, part of Mr. Bezos’ fortune comes from capturing productivity gains provided by others. 

Amazon cuts other costs on the backs of workers, most importantly by refusing to keep workplaces safe. In 2023, the US Strategic Organizing Center (a pro-labor group) reported an OSHA finding that Amazon workplace policies, especially in its warehouses and fulfillment centers, creates a hazardous workplace through inhumane discipline and monitoring systems. These policies require workers to remain on the floor except during specific breaks, even if they need a bathroom visit. OSHA and SOC have also documented cases of management refusing to provide medical treatment for workplace injuries. Changing these policies to improve workplace conditions would cost, money so Amazon leaves them in place. This of course means that some portion of Bezos’ fortune comes at the expense of worker safety. To the extent Bezos earned his wealth, he did so by exploiting and harming others.

Tupy also argues that Amazon forced other retailers to improve their websites, delivery speed, and product selection. What he fails to mention is the key change Amazon forced other retailers to make: lower prices. Target, Walmart, and other chains all had to match Amazon’s pricing, and to do this they had to keep their own employees’ wages low. This business model only works, by the way, because government subsidizes it through social welfare programs like Medicaid and SNAP, but that’s a subject for another day.

To do this, competitors had to adopt many Amazon policies, including worker pay rates. To cut costs while improving websites and delivery, Target and Walmart had to cut labor costs and degrade workplace safety. 

Amazon’s success carries important social costs as well. One reason for the death of small towns in America was the arrival of cheap retail, first in the form of Walmart stores and later with the ability to order goods online from Amazon. Yes, this saved people time, and in some cases money, but it also destroyed a key part of American social life: shopping trips to the city center or department store, lunch or dinner after, and the associated connection people form with others. 

We came to know the shop owners, cashiers, pharmacists, and other business owners and workers personally. Sometimes they helped us out of a jam. They almost always kept the proceeds from their business in the community, which Walmart and Amazon do not do. They created jobs that gave kids a choice to stay in the area rather than migrate to larger cities in search of a job.

Immigration, feminism, homosexuality, and slides away from the Church isn’t what killed small-town America. These groups in fact kept it alive by bringing new products and ideas (that killer taco place, for example). Cheap big-box and online retail killed it, and with it much of the economic activity that sustained it.

To be sure, retailers like Amazon and Wal Mart create efficiencies, with their best innovation coming in changes to supply chain management. We now have more choices, and goods that come at lower prices. Maybe Tupy is right, and each of us saved four minutes a day because we can click to order diapers instead of making a trip to a store. But this has come at a cost, both to individual workers and society as a whole. 

All of this means that Jeff Bezos deserves to be a wealthy man. But he has not earned the obscene fortune he now controls. He built this fortune by exploiting and harming workers, and by destroying a key component of community life, especially in small towns. His workers, and the local business owners he chased out of small-town America, paid much of the cost of building it. Is four minutes of time saved a day worth it?

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (House Resolution 22)

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

On April 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H. R. 22, also known as the SAVE Act. Under current election law, people registering to vote must attest/affirm that they are US citizens, under penalty of perjury, as part of the registration process. This legislation changes that law to require that people provide documentary evidence of citizenship instead, and defines what documentary proof is sufficient.

MAGA voters believe this is necessary because they are convinced that millions of non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants, swing elections against them by voting illegally. They have no evidence for this, and in fact the data shows that the type of voter fraud this legislation would stop is very rare and has never actually changed the results of an election.

Republicans in Congress passed it because their core constituency supports it, whether or not it is necessary. Many also support it because it would create a new obstacle to voting, making exercise of the franchise more difficult, and they think this will affect liberal voter turnout more than it will conservative voter turnout.

This essay outlines the very simple provisions of this bill and their potential impacts, including the new obstacles to voting it creates, and the increased costs of managing elections. Scott and I discussed election security in more detail during the last three episodes of Two Crusty Old Combat Soldiers with a Microphone.

Section 1 simply titles H. R. 22 as the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” or “SAVE Act.”

Section 2 defines the various forms of documentation sufficient to demonstrate citizenship for the purposes of registering to vote.

  1. A form of identification consistent with the REAL ID Act of 2005 (e.g., a driver’s license that shows citizenship because proof of citizenship was required for issuance).
  2. A valid US Passport.
  3. An official US military identification card together with a military record that shows a place of birth in the US.
  4. A valid government-issued ID card (Federal, State, or Tribal) showing that the applicant’s place of birth was in the US.
  5. A valid government issued photo identification card presented with one or more of the following:A certified birth certificate issued by a State, local government of a State, or Tribal government where the applicant was born that was filed with the office keeping vital records in the State, includes the full name, date, and place of birth of the applicant, lists the names of both parents, has the signature of an official authorized to sign birth certificates on behalf of the issuing government, shows the date the certificate was filed with the vital records office, and shows the seal of the issuing State or other government agency.
  6. An extract from a US hospital record of birth created at the time of birth with shows a place of birth in the US.A final adoption decree showing the applicant’s name and a place of birth in the US.A Consular Report of Birth Abroad or a certification of the applicant’s Report of Birth Abroad issued by the Secretary of State.A Naturalization Certificate or Certificate of Citizenship issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security or other document issued by the Federal government pursuant to the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
  7. An American Indian Card issued by the Department of Homeland Security with the classification “KIC.”

Note that a birth certificate alone is not sufficient without a valid government-issued ID card. This is the source of concern that people who took their spouses name upon marriage might have an issue with voter registration because the birth certificate will not match the government ID card. Since conservative women are both more likely to marry young and more likely to take the husband’s name, this could actually affect Republican voters more than it affects liberals.

More generally, despite conservative talking points around “you have to have an ID to buy beer,” government IDs are not so ubiquitous as they think. And while widely available, they also carry a cost in money and time, and though this is not a high cost it does place a barrier between voters and the voting booth.

Birth certificates are another matter. Many people (the homeless, many poor people, more likely in rural areas) do not have a copy of their certificate in a file drawer somewhere. Getting a copy may not be a simple matter for some people, especially older folks who were not born in a hospital and whose parents simple never did the paperwork – not an uncommon oversight in rural America before the 1960s. Note that not everyone has easy internet access or even a telephone, again more likely in rural areas. The Act does require acceptance of alternatives, but this is a real issue and it will make registration so difficult that many will simply pass. I actually think this is another provision that could backfire, since affluent people with college degrees are more likely to have access to these documents than poor people, including poor rural whites.

Section 3 requires applicants for voter registration to present documentary proof of US citizenship under all methods of voter registration.

  1. Voter registration with driver’s license application:
    • Amends the voter application form to note the requirement to demonstrate citizenship.
    • Adds language authorizing use of information provided on the form in a criminal or immigration proceeding.
  2. Voter registration by mail:
    • Requires election officials to make sure residents are aware of the citizenship documentation requirement.
    • Requires first-time voters who registered by mail (and therefore have never shown proof of citizenship) to either:
      • Vote in person the first time voting and show documents at that time, or
      • Appear at an election office before the deadline to register and show proof of citizenship.
      • Requires that voters in districts that allow same-day registration show documentary proof of citizenship at the polling place when they register and vote.
      • Requires election officials who receive a completed mail voter registration to notify the mail registrant of the requirement to produce proof of citizenship when voting so applicants can meet the requirement.
      • Requires reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. 
      • Requires election agencies to accept proof of citizenship.
      • Requires election agencies to ask if the applicant is a citizen of the US and prohibits registration if the applicant does not provide proof of citizenship.

The language authorizing use of information provided on a voter registration form removes the restriction on using this information for anything other than the registration itself. This would of course allow use for prosecuting a voter fraud case, and it makes sense.

The requirement for voters who registered by mail to bring documentation of citizenship to the polls when they vote the first time would cause issues for those who simply forget to bring it along, but it makes sense as part of this process and becomes less problematic after citizens become accustomed to the new process.

The rest of this section simply mandates administrative procedures such as taking steps to make sure voters know the requirements. This also make sense, but it’s important to note that these rules also increase the cost of conducting elections, notwithstanding the exemption from paperwork requirements. State and local election offices will need more staff and more funding to make sure they can implement these new procedures fairly.

Section 3 requires the Election Assistance Commission to transmit guidelines to State election officials within 10 days of enactment.

Section 4 exempts this legislation from the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Section 5 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to notify State election officials of naturalization. DHS must notify election officials when individuals become citizens.

Section 6 permits provisional ballots and allows the counting of them if proof of citizenship is shown.

Section 7 prohibits using this Act to affect the exemption of a State from any requirement under Federal law other than the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

Section 8 places the effective date as the date of enactment of the statute.

Sections 3-8 also simply set administrative requirements, such as effective date.

It’s important to note that this Federal legislation would be implemented by the States, which creates a situation where we could have 50 different sets of rules. The SAVE Act, for example, says nothing about people who have already registered to vote without demonstrating citizenship. Most States will probably grandfather them in, but if non-citizen voting is a problem – if the claim that Democrats have registered legions of non-citizens who help them win elections – this law won’t immediately solve the problem. Other States will require new registrations, which will drastically reduce the voter pool and annoy millions of American citizens who registered legally – and place an unnecessary barrier between them and the voting booth.

One missing provision I’m surprised conservatives left out is a requirement for Homeland Security to notify election officials when someone is stripped of citizenship, or of immigrants who entered legally on tourists or work visas who are not citizens. Many of these folks will have social security numbers and if we really think non-citizen voting is a problem I would think creating such a database would be a priority.

Which as it happens raises the key question. If the US government really wants to make sure only people eligible to vote actually cast a vote (only citizens whose right to vote has not been taken away), simply issue every person born in the US a national identity card at birth. Citizens would update this identification at specified ages (maybe 12, 15, 18) and at certain lifetime milestones (e.g., earning a credential for things like driving a car, flying a plane, or carrying a concealed weapon).

One of these updates would be automatic voter registration upon turning 18 – that is, anyone with a valid US Citizen ID card who is over 18 can vote. If someone changes residence, they simply register the change of address at the Post Office, either by appearing personally or making the change online, and carry proof of this change until time to get a new card.

This would amount to a universal birth certificate (passport?) that voters could show at the polling place to verify both citizenship and place of residence and use for just about any purpose that requires showing an ID card, including alcohol purchases. Real ID comes close since it requires proof of citizenship, but the difference here is that the US Citizen ID Card is issued at birth, so every child has one.

Conservatives have traditionally resisted this because they worry about the US government keeping closer track of Americans than they find comfortable. I understand this discomfort, but in a world where we willingly give up personal data so we can participate in Facebook chats, and carry a cellphone that touches broadcast towers in a way the Government can access, paranoia about “the government wants to track us” ship has sailed.

If we really believe that non-citizen voting is a problem, this is the best solution. Forcing people to demonstrate citizenship as part of voter registration is both the least efficient and most problematic way of fixing this. We can streamline the entire process – no more voter registration rules if everyone is more or less registered at birth – and make sure only US citizens can vote while also helping make casting those votes easier. If securing the vote is the goal, this is the way.

Two Old Combat Soldiers with a Microphone: Are US Elections Secure?

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Trump and his team complained so loudly about a stolen 2020 election, hundreds of his followers stormed the Capitol to stop the Electoral Vote count, causing a riot that led to deaths on both sides and demonstrated that MAGA supporters quite happily refuse to comply with law enforcement instructions. They demonstrated a willingness to use violence against law enforcement officers if necessary to protect their understanding of their rights.

The Harris campaign conceded peacefully, and no one on the left has violently protested the election result that made Trump President again, but that doesn’t mean some on the left don’t question the result. Many liberals might rather believe Trump stole the election than believe that so many Americans wanted him back.

In this episode, Scott and I briefly discuss some of the claims made by both sides, and then discuss why the possibility changing the result of a US election by interfering with voting machines or mailed ballots is close enough to zero that it might as well be zero. He shares his decades of experience and training to let viewers know more about how election systems work, why they’re not vulnerable to the hacking (a word we both hate in this context), and why we can trust the results, even when we lose.

This doesn’t mean a faction can’t influence the results on other ways. Next week, we’ll dig into what that might look like, including an analysis of the SAVE Act.

Watch this and other episodes of Two Old Combat Soldiers with a Microphone on our YouTube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe!

War in Iran? The US Military in Aggressive Wars

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Trump is apparently expanding the US military presence in the Middle East, a possible buildup to an attack on Iran. The why of this is important, since it involves nuclear capability, Israel, and quite possibly some corrupt scheme to line Trump’s pockets by either getting a payoff for stopping the attack or a payoff for executing it. All-in-all an interesting development for a President who just scammed $10B from American taxpayers for his “Board of Peace,” which itself raises interesting Constitutional questions about that whole Advise and Consent clause that requires Senate approval for treaties.

A post – or podcast episode – for another day. For now, this got me to thinking about US military leaders and how I would expect them to react if given orders to conduct offensive operations in support of an expansionist fascist regime.

We already know they will conduct offensive operations against both nation states and non-state actors given a plausible national security and moral argument, however specious (see Viet Nam and Communist expansion).

What would it take to get them on board with an openly expansionist foreign policy? To capture Greenland by force….then Cuba…Panama (the stole our canal, after all)? He’s openly spoken about invading all these countries, plus Mexico, on a “go after the cartels” pretext.

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